


Don't Grieve Me, Love Me

by HinnyBellarkeSwan



Series: The 100 Songfics [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 17:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20049826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HinnyBellarkeSwan/pseuds/HinnyBellarkeSwan
Summary: 4x13 AU Bellamy still makes the choice to leave her behind but he grieves with a guitar and a song he heard his mother sing.Lyrics are from Brett Young's song Don't Want to Write This Song.





	Don't Grieve Me, Love Me

**Author's Note:**

> Look I am not a fan of Becho. I don't understand why the writers did that and it does nothing for her character. I respect Echo and her choices and I think what the writers have done is messed up. So this is a remedy of that, as well as a way to get what I spent the season four to five hiatus dreaming about. I found it half-finished in my works and found inspiration and re-wrote it with that song.

Bellamy was staring out the window of the Ark, as he had every day since they made it back into space. 

It was here that he and Raven had vowed not to let her sacrifice be in vain. It was here that he clutched an empty bottle of alcohol and wished with all his heart that it was full. It was here that he first comes after finding a guitar. It was here that he used a skill he hardly remembered having. It was here that he grieved her with the same guitar. 

He never sang the words floating in his brain. It would hurt far to much. It was enough to play the chords he had known go with them. It was enough to close his eyes and see the lyrics. See her, the sunlight of earth reflecting in her bright hair, vivid blue staring up at him with determination. 

He had heard his mother singing this song, once or twice when he was younger. She had often played the old guitar in their quarters to mask the sounds of Octavia when she was a baby, but she had taught him to play and when he was good enough, she never picked it up again. 

It was the one thing neither he nor his mother could ever bear to part with when things got desperate and so they had clung to it, clung to the one thing that they could call a Blake tradition. 

Bellamy had tried to teach Octavia to play, once or twice, but she had no interest. She was more interested in the lyrics, in the songs than learning to play them. 

Now, back on the Ark, foreign guitar in his hands, in so much nicer condition than his original, devoid of his mother, his sister, and the girl he… of Clarke. He had played and he hadn’t felt like there was cold vice gripping his heart. He had played and he hadn't felt like every time he closed his eyes while playing, that he would see her burning instead. Playing had meant that he could escape the memory of leaving her to burn. 

So he played. The others had never discovered this little pass time, or if they had, they were wise enough to leave him be. This was his and his alone. 

There's a dress in the closet, that I just can't throw away  
I know it might sound crazy, but I haven't changed your pillowcase  
A heart half full, or half empty  
Is half gone either way, with you gone  
What went wrong?

As he played through the first verse, the better memories with the blonde he had such a complex relationship with danced through his brain. 

There was the night they had been sat under a tree, Dax dead by his hand at their feet and she had told him that she needed him. That they couldn’t survive without him. That he wasn’t a monster. Under that tree, even more so than with Atom, Bellamy realized that this girl was an Atlas of her own, but rather than one person, she was trying to carry hundreds. 

Those days at the dropship, after they agreed to a ceasefire between them, the ones that at the time were drenched in anxiety and fear, were lighter now. He preferred to remember her this way most of the time. The brave princess who had stood up to him, despite his brawn, his wit, his bravado, his obvious advantages, Clarke Griffin had stood up to and cowed the person he had allowed himself to become. 

The day he thought she was kidnapped by grounders flashed through his mind. Spacewalker and a few others hazy in the memory. The relief, walking back through that gate and being hit with an armful of blonde would sometimes be his tool of self-soothing, those long three months after Mount Weather. 

He prefers to remember her, not as the Commander of Death that so many saw by the time Primfiya rolled around, but as Clarke Griffin. The scared seventeen-year-old girl that had passion and bravery written in her eyes and spilling from her lips. The girl who just wanted to save everyone and find peace, even when there was little hope for it. 

Maybe the hardest part  
'Cause we didn't break this heart  
Nobody cheated or lied  
I still have to live with goodbye  
But how can I just move on?  
I've loved you for way too long  
I don't want to admit that you're gone  
I don't wanna write this song  
Don't wanna write this song

The harder memories were the ones where she was angry with him, sad, or crying. The hardest memory for him to bear is that one that always arises whenever he allows himself down this road. 

Bellamy remembers the details of that night clearly. The pain in their voices as they debated who was essential personnel. The exhaustion hitting him, waking up from an unexpected nap an hour later to find Clarke with silent tears streaming down her cheek. Finding his name in her neat hand next to number 99. He hadn’t even had to look to know her name was nowhere on the list. The 100th slot empty. 

He remembered demanding that she put her name there, that she do it or he would. When the tears had fallen harder and the adamant admission that she didn’t think she could, he had met her eyes and done it for her. He had vowed, mere weeks before that death wave that they would survive together. 

He remembered the absolute terror hours before he had to leave her behind; when in that white lab she had looked up at him with shining blue eyes overflowing with emotion and confessed that she knew she would die. 

Bellamy still feels the adamancy with which he had responded. That she wouldn’t die, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He can still feel the desperation warring with the need to cave to the own desperation in her voice. Can still feel her small hand over the layers of cloth and a radiation suit, the touch a burn he would never forget. Her words about using both his heart and his head (the only reason he could do what he had) ring in his ears. The ache he had felt, the need to pull her in and back up his admission that he had her for that, using her head, the logic to his passion, the head to his heart; the strong desire to hold her close, to tell her everything- he still felt it all, still wished for a little more time or courage or both. 

To tell her the one thing that Bellamy had come to terms with that night he had put her name below his. The thing that had been building between them since the earliest days on the ground. The pull he had for her, the things he felt with her that not even Gina had been able to re-create. But his stubborn belief in her survival, in himself, had allowed him to let another moment, just like the one near the Rover and the river, go. 

Another glass of whiskey, by your picture in a frame  
I'm playin' all the black keys and cryin' out your name  
I'm holdin' on, or lettin' go  
It's gonna kill me either way  
With you gone  
Oh

Bellamy was aware that the others were avoiding him outside his duties as their leader. They were giving him a wide berth. 

It had been six months and the only person he still could bear to make eye contact with was Raven. The rest brought about to many painful memories, in some way or another. Even Raven did so, but he knew he needed to rely on her to keep them alive so he buried her memory associations but could not bring himself to do the same with the others. 

He had only managed a weak smile when Monty’s radiation wrangled hands had pressed a container of moonshine into his hands two months in. He had then escaped, wandering the parts of the Ring they rarely inhabited. He had found the guitar that night.   
Bellamy hadn’t played that first night, just stood there staring at the instrument in an what was clearly an old guard members home. 

Then he had found the cell. 

He had been avoiding that area on his wanderings before that night, but he suddenly was drawn to them. He had no way of knowing without accessing the file system which cell had been his sisters, his other friends. However, it was easy to find hers. 

It stood as all the others did. Doors wide open, forgotten in the need to get its inhabitant aboard a ship to her death. He knew it was hers because he would know her drawings anywhere and the faded grey lines from the months before they met still adorned her walls. 

No one had cleaned them off and he was grateful. Because she had drawn the ground. She had drawn their hope on the floor in the months alone, knowing full well she would never see the ground. Or so she had thought. Then she had hurtled to the ground and her art became the same as everything else in her past. A tool for their survival. 

Bellamy had lost count of the number of maps that she had drawn for them. The number of medicinal plants she had cataloged and drawn so accurately for them. The dark charcoal on her fair hands. The smudge she sometimes left on her forehead when she brushed her hair out of the way. 

Then he couldn’t remember her drawing at all. After Mount Weather and Alie, he could not remember the last time she had been covered in the charcoal, the last time she had been hunched over her sketchpad. 

He lost track of how long he had sat in her cell, clutching the moonshine but unable to drink it. Hands brushing near the edges of her art. Bellamy could have sworn she was there next to him, her calming presence at his side, her head leaning into his shoulder maybe. Her small body exuding more strength than he ever thought possible. 

The ache within him grew and began to close all at once that night, but he had made a new vow. He would never care for another the way he had for her. He would never risk losing anyone else the way he had lost her. He would live enough for both of them. 

So the next morning he had begun. He had met the eyes of his space crew and apologized quietly, even to the spy he had so many conflicting feelings about. They had begun to accept his apology, and in the last few months, the avoidance had begun to lessen. 

However, they still allowed him this. His guitar, the view of the world, the pain and the time spent mourning a girl who had saved them all, again. At her own detriment. 

Maybe the hardest part  
'Cause we didn't break this heart  
Nobody cheated or lied  
I still have to live with goodbye  
But how can I just move on?  
I've loved you for way too long  
I don't want to admit that you're gone  
I don't wanna write this song  
Don't wanna write this song

Bellamy continued on. However, he never said her name, or when he did it was to win an argument or to remind them all of what her sacrifice had meant. He stood to one side and watched his small group of people heal, watched them love. 

He knew that she had loved watching Monty and Harper together. No matter her conflicting beliefs, she had adored Monty and had been so glad to see them together. It was something she had admitted in the dead of night, just the two of them in that office, a list of names at their side. 

Monty’s was on it. Raven’s was on it. Harper’s wasn’t. It had brought tears to her eyes to admit that she knew Monty would hate her but Monty was cross-trained and, on top of his brain, he could shoot. Jasper was a liability that she had not even considered adding, but leaving Harper off had been a harder choice. 

She had told him that she liked seeing Monty with her. That Harper reminded him to live, not just survive. 

She had admitted that Murphy and Emori were much the same. The boy so full of hatred and snark had been mellowed by the grounder girl. He was still vicious, still snarky, but he was more loyal now. Clarke had admitted that he had helped save her life after Lexa died. Had admitted to a grudging respect for the cockroach that had bloomed into affection. 

He watched the couples now, for her. They were living together, Monty and Harper quietly caring for each other and Monty feeding them all. Harper boosting their morale, her easy smile and her willingness to listen without judgment endeared her to even the tough grounders in their midst. 

Murphy was harder, Bellamy knew he struggled with being needed. Emori had taken to life in space like fish to water. Her natural curiosity blooming and Raven had capitalized on her interest, training her to be another Raven. It had given tension to the pair, a tension that seemed to build. But he watched Murphy work himself out slowly. And the tension was slowly abating. 

Echo and Raven had even begun to bond. The mechanic forgiving the spy for the things she had done. It was tentative, as was Echo’s peace with everyone aboard the Ark. But as the months passed, that tension to seemed to ease. 

He knew that he was the one outlier. The last lingering piece of tension there but he could not help it. This was the girl who had been in a cage next to his, who had tricked him and resulted in Gina’s death. Who had nearly killed Clarke, nearly killed his sister. There was a painful history there that was far deeper than the others and far harder to smooth over. 

He also had not missed the way the spy had begun to look at him as the months passed and he did his best to ease the tension. Bellamy had no interest in moving on. Not now and not ever. 

Bobby pins on the dresser  
Wilted flowers in a vase  
I left a rose on your headstone  
I never quite know what to say

It was Emori that had quietly asked him, after two years on the Ring, if he thought they should have a funeral to offer one last gift of peace to the girl who had saved them all. 

Bellamy blinked at her in confusion. It had never occurred to him that the others could still be grieving her loss in their own small ways. Emori was looking at him with quiet hope and so he had nodded, giving in. Bellamy would share the pain for a few hours, they would grieve her together. 

So they all gathered in her cell. They were silent for a few moments, those who hadn’t been here before were taking in the drawings, feeling the shadow of Clarke’s presence. 

Then they had all looked to him but he stood, silent, staring back. So Raven had begun. 

“Clarke Griffin was loyal. The moment she learned the truth about Finn and me, she never did anything to sabotage our relationship. She forgave me, for the horrid things I said to her when he died. I never asked her and she never said it, but she did. She vowed she would always choose me first.” The mechanic sucked in a breath. 

“She let us all forget that she was human, she let us all heap our burdens on her and she took it silently because she was loyal.” 

Murphy nodded, his sharp eyes downcast. “She was the first person to give me a second chance. Clarke Griffin was compassionate. We all forgot, towards the end, but she was just as much the Commander of Life as she was Death. She tried so hard to save every life she could, and she still watched so many people die.” He looked around the room, eyes falling on his girlfriend who was clutching Raven’s hand. His eyes fell on Bellamy, who met them with a reserved steady look. “Yet she never gave up hope.” Bellamy shifted, knowing that wasn’t true but he let the boy have his memories. 

“She saved my life. Her mother and King Roan were pushing to test the nightblood again. They tied Murphy and me to the Rocket in the lab. In the end, rather than let me die she took the nightblood for herself. Clarke Grifin was a hero. She gave me her helmet, she spared Echo’s life. She never stopped being a hero.” 

Echo said nothing, but she did nod at the girl's words. She knew, however, that her words would be unwelcome. Though she thinks she would have added that Clarke Griffin was loving. She had loved everyone, she had fought hard to save everyone. 

Monty whispered, “Clarke Griffin was intelligent.” All eyes turned to the Asian boy who was clutching Harper to his side, his eyes trained on the image of the forest at their feet. “She knew how to figure out we were on the wrong mountain. She knew how to save lives. More than that, she could almost keep up with me and even Raven. She picked things up so fast, and she used her intelligence to keep us alive.” 

Harper smiled, squeezing his hand. “Clarke Griffin was a good listener. It’s no secret that she struggled after the Mountain, and she wasn’t the only one. We talked about it sometimes. The things we have had to do survive. She never pushed me to talk, she just sat there in the quiet and waited till I had the words. Then she listened and only when asked did she profer an opinion.” She laughed. “She thought that the prank you and Jasper pulled that afternoon while we were gone to get the machine from Azgeda was pretty awesome. She had a sense of humor, but no one noticed it often.”

Monty’s laugh was choked with a sob. He had lost his best friend and he had lost Clarke, the one girl who despite everything, he had never lost faith in. Harper felt the same. Murphy felt it. Emori and Raven felt it. He felt it. 

His voice was haggard with grief when he spoke. “Clarke Griffin was inspiring. She made me want to be better. She made me realize that keeping everyone alive was the same as keeping Octavia alive. Clarke inspired me to be a better leader. She inspired Lexa to be a better leader. She inspired Roan to be a better leader. But more than that, she was humble.” 

All eyes were pinned on him and he suddenly found words he had never been able to find before. 

“She was loving, she was kind, she was compassionate, funny, a good listener. My best friend. My family. My…” He cut himself off, but then the pressure in his chest continued to build so he whispered. “The girl I wish I had allowed myself to love before it was to late.” 

Raven moved to his side, her hand on his shoulder. Murphy and Monty stood across from him, deep wells of silent support. Harper took Bellamy’s hand. “She loved you to Bellamy. We all knew that.”   
Everyone nodded, standing there in silence before they all began to leave. Soon he was alone with the ghost of a girl he wished he had told everything to. The girl he wished he had said I love you to. 

“I love you, Clarke Griffin.” 

He had said it once, he just wished it wasn’t at her funeral. 

Maybe the hardest part  
'Cause we didn't break this heart  
Nobody cheated or lied  
I still have to live with goodbye  
But how can I just move on?  
I've loved you for way too long  
I don't want to admit that you're gone  
I don't wanna write this song

After the funeral, they all truly began to move on. The days turned to months, to years. Bellamy buried his grief after that night, he stopped playing that song, rarely picked up the guitar. Instead, he threw himself into their survival, their way back to the ground. 

He forgave Echo, fully, a year after Clarke’s funeral but he also quietly made it clear that he couldn’t be with her. That he didn’t think he would ever be ready to be with anyone ever again. 

The grounder had taken it all silently, the tension between them melting as he learned to trust her, and he did lean on her, eh leaned on all of them. But he never let it go further than that. He couldn’t. His heart had been left behind on Earth, burned alive by fire and radiation. So he used his head. 

When Murphy left the group or tired to, he wouldn’t let him. When Monty needed someone to listen he was there. When Harper needed help in medical, he was there. When Raven needed him, he was there. When Emori tearfully admitted that she and John were struggling again, he was there. 

Then a ship appeared after six years in space, and the chance to go to the ground, to go home was both appealing and sickening. On the one hand, Octavia was down there, alone and left with a group of people that had been trying to kill one another when he had left. 

On the other hand, Clarke had died there and he wasn’t sure he would ever be ready to deal with that fully. To breathe in the real air again, to know that he was seeing and breathing and she never would again. 

No, don't wanna write this song  
I don't wanna write this song  
Mmm, don't wanna write this song, whoa

Then he crashed to earth and a little grounder girl saved his life and gave him his hope and his heart back in one fell swoop. Clarke knew you would come. Three words that had shocked him and kickstarted a dormant heart. 

He followed this small girl, so much like his lost love, into the woods, leaving the others behind. He saw so much of Clarke in the little girl that he wanted to believe it. The teen was strong, fierce, independent, brave, compassionate, and wore so many familiar expressions that bespoke a deep bond. He only hoped he wasn’t imagining it. 

When the Rover made it into the clearing and his eyes found the beacon of blonde hair on the ground his heart stuttered. 

When he dropped to the ground, the rover door clicking shut he felt those eyes on him for the first time in six years and it felt like, in any other situation, he could finally take a breath. 

When the guns were aimed at his head and he was taunted by the woman that was obviously the leader about Clarke’s importance his eyes weren’t on hers. They were on Clarke and his quiet but emphatic she is made her small smile appear. 

Then he was forced to watch her being lead away, forced to negotiate their freedom, Raven’s safety and his sister’s release from under the floor. 

When, after hours, he finally had a deal he demanded to see her. He needed to see her up close. He was no idiot. He had clocked the device around her neck and the cuts and bruises marring her futures. She had been hurt and tortured. He needed to know she was still breathing. 

Blue eyes met his over his shoulder and Bellamy nearly cried at the hope and the wonder in her expression. He rushed forward as she struggled to sit up, he helped her, eyes tracing over her, noting what was the same and what was different, not that it was processing. 

Then Clarke’s strong arms were around him, her nose pressed against his neck, his own in her hair and he truly felt calm and truly able to breathe for the first time since he had closed that rocket door. 

He loved Clarke Griffin, and the universe had brought her back from the dead. He wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste like the last. 

So he leaned into her embrace, the emotion in her voice when she said he was home and rather than just towing her in for a hug, he took a chance and tugged he in, placing his lips over hers. 

Clarke froze for a moment and he nearly pulled away but then her small, calloused hands were tracing his jaw and sliding into his hair. Her lips returning his kiss and he knew. She loved him to. He hadn’t needed to play that song the artist hadn’t wanted to write. She was right here. 

“I love you, Clarke.” 

Shocked blue eyes met his brown but then the sparkle he loved appeared in her eye and she leaned in, whispering in his ear. “I’ve loved you for seven years, Bellamy. Glad you caught up.” 

He barked out a surprised laugh and then kissed her again because he could. He loved her, she loved him, and together they would get through this.


End file.
